IndyUndercover: "So long, and thanks for all the fish"

Dateline: Sun 09 Dec 2007

OK, the universe is not really going to blow up with the disappearance of IndyUndercover, but as I told Abdul Hakim-Shabazz this morning, the blog will be missed. In the guise of "Joe Friday," supposedly written by cops, IndyUndercover did a great job of sticking it to the Peterson Plan when the mayor and his administration failed to give police officers their due. Its other great contribution: keeping the radar tuned on crime in Indianapolis.

But I'm not a fan of anonymous blogs when they dish as much dirt as IndyUndercover did. So I admit to a bit of an obsession with unmasking Joe Friday.

In a phone conversation this morning, Abdul acknowledged he would occasionally "pass something along" to the blog, and vice versa, he says. "We had a mutual exchange of information."

But, he insisted, he was not IndyUndercover. "Here's the thing. That blog is not a person. Joe Friday is like Uncle Sam."

Abdul acknowledged, again, that he has a lot of cop friends and said what he's said before on his Indiana Barrister blog: that he advised a bunch of disgruntled officers over drinks a year and a half ago how they could start their own blog. "I thought the cops in this town were being treated crappy. My attitude was, 'Hey, if I can help, I will.'"

Abdul agreed that it was time to pull the plug on the cop blog: "After the election, they (IndyUndercover) felt like they did what they needed to do. The problem with revolutionaries is that they often don't know when to stop fighting."

Huh?

"They were fighting for change," he amplified. "After Ballard was elected, it's a better day in the police department."

For the record, Abdul said he was never served with a warrant involving his investigation of a prominent Dem's alleged involvement in a child sex-abuse case. A lot of us became suspicious when Abdul wrote about that issue on Indiana Barrister -- the official Abdul blog -- and then IndyUndercover joined in on Abdul's behalf. At the time, IndyUndercover vowed to stay in business to support their buddy.

But now Abdul is in the clear -- "somebody got a hold of the First Amendment and read it" -- and IndyUndercover is no more.